


never has it been anyone else

by mini_rini



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Mutual Pining, Reference to anxiety attacks, Sungyeol is insecure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 08:03:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11642364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mini_rini/pseuds/mini_rini
Summary: It is well-known in Woollim High School that should you go up to Nam Woohyun and ask him on a date, he will not turn you down.





	never has it been anyone else

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Backflip](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11303844) by [kiaronna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiaronna/pseuds/kiaronna). 



> ok so imma be honest???/ i actually wrote this for a different fandom (General and I) but literally nobody reads fic abt that drama so i tweaked the fic a lil to suit my fav couple of all time wooyeol and so here we are!
> 
> not beta-read, so all mistakes are mine.

Nam Woohyun, top track athlete as well as captain of the football team, has received almost legendary status in Woollim Private High School. The tall senior has a commanding presence, drawing attention to himself wherever he goes, and it has unsurprisingly resulted in the formation of a fanclub of sorts for him, mostly populated by the wide-eyed freshmen and sophomores. The seniors and juniors turn up their noses at such juvenile behaviour, knowing Woohyun’s true nature to be easygoing and a little dorky at times.

However, as popular as Woohyun is, he only has several people whom he considers true friends, most of whom he’s known from since he was a child. Sungyeol, his closest friend, Kibum and Sungjong, partners in crime, and Sunggyu, rival and fellow cheeseball. All of them are seniors except for Sungjong, and as the end of the year draws nearer and nearer, whispers begin to start up about who will be asking who out.

Of course, the person most talked about is none other than Woohyun. Everyone is interested to see who the boy will ask, seeing as he has yet to demonstrate any extended interest in anybody. He is a serial flirter, no doubt about that, but throughout the four years spent in Woollim High, he has never asked anyone out. It is well-known in the school that should you go up to Woohyun and ask him on a date, he will not turn you down.

Sungyeol knows this. Out of all of Woohyun’s friends, he thinks bitterly, he knows the best about exactly what each date involves, whether or not the girl,  _ always _ a girl and never a boy, was a good kisser, whether or not they went any further than that. Woohyun texts him throughout every date, frequently if they are boring and more sporadically if he finds his attention drawn by them. So far, only five have managed to catch his attention enough that he stays away from his phone for the night, but none have successfully scored a second date.

Sungyeol selfishly hopes that that trend will continue, but he doesn’t hold out much hope. Woohyun has recently been ditching their friend group more and more often to spend time with a transfer student in the year below named Jung Eunji, and as prom approaches, the tiny knot of anxiety in Sungyeol’s heart grows and grows into something hard and ugly. If she asks Woohyun to prom, Woohyun will agree, and the two of them will dance off into the sunset and leave Sungyeol behind, picking up the pieces of his broken heart.

Because for years now, Sungyeol has carried within him a deep love for his best (and oldest) friend. He’d only noticed its extent when Woohyun called him up one night to tell him about the one date with which he’d gotten past third base with and he’d felt sick to his stomach listening to the glee in his best friend’s voice. Going to Sungjong for help yielded no answers (not ones that he wanted to hear anyway), and god forbid him going to  _ Sunggyu _ of all people to seek counsel.

Nevertheless, he would like to think that he’s held out remarkably well all these years, concealing his feelings for his best friend. His brother’s advice had been to confess to Woohyun, but from Woohyun’s tendencies, Sungyeol knows that it’s only setting him up for failure. After all, why would Woohyun want to consider or even return his feelings when he’s been by Woohyun’s side for so many years without any indication of the other boy even being attracted to the same sex?

Sungyeol knows better.

But it still doesn’t stop tears from welling in his eyes and choking up his throat when he comes in early to their biology class and sees Woohyun, Sunggyu, Kibum and Sungjong stringing up a banner with the words, “Will you go to prom with me?” and wrangling a couple of special balloons shaped like letters into a line. Sungyeol can’t see exactly what the balloons spell out, but he knows there are four of them, and his heart suddenly plummets. Woohyun has a habit of calling Eunji by her surname, Jung, and Woohyun is obviously preparing to ask her out.

Kibum turns around, catching a glimpse of Sungyeol lingering at the door. “Ah shit, he’s here!” hhe mutters, fumbling with one of the balloons. It pops, leaving nothing more than shreds of blue rubber (of  _ course _ it had to be Sungyeol’s favourite colour that Woohyun had chosen) in her hands.

Woohyun looks up then, a big blue teddy clutched in his arms. He opens his mouth to say something, but seeing the bear, one that Sungyeol had secretly been eyeing in the shop since last month, is the last straw and he doesn’t wait around to listen.

He turns and dashes down the corridor. 

Woohyun doesn’t come after him.

 

****

 

Sungyeol skips class that day, something he almost never does, and hides out in the student council room instead. Sungjong finds him there during break, curled under one of the big desks, and pokes at him until he crawls out from the space.

The shorter boy pulls Sungyeol into a chair and hands him a box of juice he’d bought from the vending machine, waiting until he’s poked the straw through the box and taken a sip before he speaks.

“Woohyun didn’t mean to hurt you, you know,” he says matter-of-factly. Sungyeol curls back into himself at the mention of his name, burying his head in his arms.

“Can we not talk about him today?” Sungyeol asks tiredly. “I know I said I would get over him before we graduated, but as you can see, that’s not happening. Did he at least get to ask out the girl he wanted to or did I ruin everything?”

Sungjong shakes his head. His face is serious but his eyes are dancing with mirth when he says, “He didn’t get to ask  _ him _ out, but neither did you ruin anything. He just knows that he’ll have to try harder next time.”

The emphasis on the pronoun of Woohyun’s apparent love interest has Sungyeol’s world suddenly crashing around him. So not only had Woohyun been batting for his team all this while, he had also neglected to tell Sungyeol anything. Valiantly suppressed insecurities that he’s only ever told Sungjong in the dead of the night, whispered over the phone, begin to well up in him, making his breath come faster and faster. Oh _god_ , Woohyun hadn’t enlisted his help for the setup this morning either; did he not trust or like Sungyeol enough? Or god forbid, did he _know_ _about Woohyun’s crush on him_?

A hand closing over his own jerks him from his spiral, and he looks up at Sungjong, who’s leaning over the table looking earnestly at him.

“Sungyeol, whatever you’re thinking now, let go of it. We all love you, Woohyun probably the most, and don’t you ever dare think that you’re an expendable part of this group."

A small chuckle bubbles up within him. Even without saying anything to him, Sungjong had managed to guess the things that had been bothering him the most.

“Come on, let’s get to class,” his friend says, holding out his hand with a cheeky grin. “We can’t have the vice-president of the student council cutting class, can we?”

 

****

 

Woohyun tries to talk to him during class, but Sungyeol merely brushes him off with a curt, “We need to know this for the exam. Can’t it wait?”

He doesn’t know whether it hurts him or relieves him that Woohyun drops the subject immediately after that when usually his protests never deter his best friend from scribbling notes in the margins of his notebook before pushing it over for Sungyeol to read and reply.

 

****

 

He doesn’t  _ care _ , of course, that Woohyun seems to think that they’re okay, that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with him today.

He’s also not going to admit, of course, that he maybe cries a little before he goes to bed when he clicks on his phone’s home button for probably the hundredth time that night and sees no new messages from Woohyun.

 

****

When he walks into school the next day, Sungjong is waiting for him in the foyer. The younger boy grabs his arm and marches him off to the student council room, not letting him leave but also not telling him why she’s sequestered him in there. The room is stuffy and warm, and Sungyeol is beginning to sweat, sitting there and pestering Sungjong, who is as immaculate as usual.

A message comes through on Sungjong’s phone, and Woohyun reads, “DONE!” in all caps displayed on the screen.

“Okay, let’s go,” he chirps, standing up and pulling Sungyeol along with him. His grip is firm, and Woohyun only has a few moments to wonder about his sudden cheeriness before they’ve stopped in front of their first class of the day. The door is yanked open suddenly and Sungjong shoves him none too gently inside.

A mass of blue and white, the same as yesterday, greets him. Inside are his friends but also his classmates, laughing and cheering as they see him enter the room. Sunggyu is behind the door, presumably the one to have opened it earlier, and Kibum has gone over to where Sungjong is. The only one he doesn’t see is Woohyun, but as he scans the room again, he sees the boy standing from where he had been crouched underneath the teacher’s desk.

He’s holding that same bear from yesterday.

He’s holding the bear and his eyes are warm and filled with some kind of emotion that Sungyeol has never seen directed so openly at him before, but where’s Eunji? Where is the person that Woohyun is supposed to be asking out? There’s something, a missing piece that is niggling at the back of Sungyeol’s brain, begging to be put into place.

Woohyun stops right in front of him, his body nearly coming into contact with the bear in Woohyun’s hands. The classroom falls abruptly silent.

“Sungyeol,” Woohyun begins solemnly. Sungyeol tenses up. What could he possibly be-

A stray giggle breaks the silence, and Sungyeol is dragged back up from the spiral he had almost fallen into again.

“Will you,” Woohyun continues grandly, unfazed by the loss of atmosphere, “go to prom with me?”

The final piece clicks, and Sungyeol sees the whole picture in startling clarity. His shock from yesterday, Sungjong’s obscure words, him being cornered today… 

He can’t help it.

A tear escapes and rolls down his cheek.

In front of him, Woohyun’s face has morphed into something none of his classmates have seen before. The great king of Woollim High, always with a smile on his face and a joke or two at hand, now looks almost  _ terrified _ .

“S-Sungyeol?” he says, voice quaking a little with nerves. “I can take it back if you want, it doesn’t matter if you don’t feel the same way or anything, it won’t change a- mmpfh!”

Sungyeol darts forward and presses his lips against his best friend’s. Tears are still coursing down his cheeks and his legs are still the tiniest bit shaky, but the honest fear in Woohyun’s voice at the thought of Sungyeol not returning his feelings had made his muscles move forward impulsively.

Woohyun’s arms come around him, and he can feel the soft synthetic fur of the bear he’d bought brushing against the back of his neck.

All around them, everyone is cheering and clapping, the noise finally drawing a teacher into the room shouting at them to quiet down and to go back to their seats.

Woohyun slides into his seat and Sungyeol takes his usual spot next to him. Everything is the same as before, if you don’t count the multitude of balloons scattered around the room, the bear perched on the edge of his desk and Woohyun’s arm warm around his shoulders.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are l o v e 
> 
> tumblr: kuroophyll


End file.
